In the Emergency at 3a.m....

In the emergency,at 3 a.m. What happens next...?



Nov. 27 - First Sunday of Advent


Well, we have reached the beginning of another Church Year - at least you have, can't speak for me though I was ok when I wrote!


The theme of this Sunday is " Vigilant Waiting," The two words don't always go together. We can be vigilant - "awake" or "alert" - but without expecting anything or anyone in particular, but when we say "vigilant waiting" this Sunday, we are in fact expecting Someone - not just "anyone" but a very special Person: the great Messiah or redeemer.


The Firsl Reading is an anguished cry for help on behalf of the Israelite people. It is attributed to Isaiah who lived about 750 years before Christ came on earth. However the Reading today is by another prophet who assumed Isaiah's mantle in a period much closer to the birth of Our Lord. Precisely because their sacred books told them that their liberation was at hand - though they misunderstood what "liberation" meant and saw it in terms of freedom from foreign powers - the cries of the people increased in volume and this Reading expresses their plight very dramatically.


The Responsorial Psalm is clearly a 'response" or confirmation of what has been said in the First Reading . Our own needs are just as great today but all too often we are not conscious of our moral poverty not to say helplessness.


The Second Reading - not surprisingly - has again the theme of waiting but perhaps even more impressive is the frequent repetition of the name of Jesus Christ. Paul does not know when the Lord will be "revealed" to his Corinthian converts - some of his most fickle - but he knows that when this take place as, presumably an individual conversion, all the pieces will fall into place and the Corinthians will have "grace" - the gracious presence of the Lord - and "peace," a reply to the endless questions all of us raise going through life and which the Corinthians must have felt even more keenly because of the new and remarkable ideas Paul had preached to them.


The Gospel repeats the familiar theme: wait, stay awake. It is particularly relevant in our time. Over all the Church there is a cloud of either indifference or undue and unjustified optimism. The old-time thumpers of pulpits who made us quake in our pews are just a memory. And yet the moral situation today needs more pulpit-thumpers than ever. Catholics who fail to observe the Church's law in their marriages. Catholics who go to Confession - if at all - only every few years. Catholics whose girls are making them grandparents long before the normal time. Catholics on drugs. And the list could continue. Awake and sober? Hardly. Ready to meet the Master? Scarcely. And these are the unfortunate people who are rushed to the Emergency at 3 a.m. where they will indeed be well- treated for their physical ills but... is anybody thinking of their immortal souls? Unfortunately no, not even in Catholic hospitals where for the most part there is no Chaplain and the personnel may not even consider the spiritual needs of their patient. It is a very serious question needing much prayer on our part.


~ November 2011 Concord